Below you'll find a letter that I've written to anyone interested in our Online School for Sustainability. It's on the long side for the sake of thoroughness. Feel free to scan the headings and read what's of interest. At the end, I invite everyone to take a survey... there's a link to the right and also at the bottom. Please take a few minutes to complete that. Thanks for your time!

﻿Haven Homestead'sSchool for SustainabilityA Proposal Letter

To whom it may concern,

I am Lindsay Hodge. I am reaching out to you today because of your interest in sustainable living skills, and I wonder if you would like to participate in building something awesome?

IntroductionMy husband, Christopher, and I have always been interested in helping people to learn about the homesteading and sustainable living skills we deeply value. That's why we decided to build our place, Haven Homestead. We've come up with any number of plans for how to create a school where folks can come and learn. We've already been teaching classes on our homestead through the local community college for about two years. We've started a newsletter, two blogs, and I have plans to write so many books. We are so excited for the possibilities that are ahead of us.

Recently, Chris and I made a goal to establish an online school and host at least one, once-a-year, week long workshop on our Homestead, in addition to the courses we already teach. We are currently in the process of establishing housing where folks can come and stay on the property, and our plans for the week long workshops are coming along. I was worried about how the online course would work when I came across a site, Lynda.com.

How It HAS Been DoneIf you've never heard about Lynda.com, here's the short story. This site was first established in 1995 by Linda Weinman and her husband in order to teach folks web design. It was recently purchased by LinkedIn. They offer courses on everything from photography to web design, and all sorts of other business and computer related content. They are different from most online courses in that they offer a monthly or yearly subscription rate for access to ANY class, at ANY time. Most massive open online courses have you commit to one course for one fee, and the contributor/teacher gets a set royalty from that course. From the research that I've done online, Lynda.com's structure goes something like this:

They find a potential contributor

They do a screen test

They provide transport for their new contributor to their studio where they produce and shoot the content.

The content is then made available for students to access.

Students pay a monthly or yearly subscription and receive open access to ANY course.

The royalties go into a pool monthly and contributors are paid based on number of views.

Lynda.com is constantly adding to their course offerings, and the industries represented go through changes which require updated courses on a nearly constant basis. This encourages the subscribers to keep their subscriptions open.

I personally think that this is a great model for our online school. However, because of the differences in the industries (Lynda.com is business/computer oriented and things change rapidly, Homesteading and sustainable living skills don't change very often) we will need to make a few important adjustments.

Necessary AdjustmentsIn the industry of homesteading and sustainable living, we are a bunch of DIY-ers, and many of the skills that we would want to teach would need to be taught outside in gardens and in other locations. Instead of having a set where the videos are produced and shot, we would look for contributors who could produce their own videos according to a set of standards that we would establish. Support would be provided to the contributors in order to foster their abilities to participate, and to ensure a high quality learning experience for subscribers.

New contributors would need to apply for inclusion in our library through an online submission process in order to control duplicate and low-quality content. We would encourage folks to apply who we think would be a great fit.

Content from contributors would be submitted to a quality control team before being released. This team would watch the videos in full and ensure that all quality standards are being met. Quality standards will need to be established, however I feel it important that we keep all of these courses “family friendly.”

Possible Pricing and StructureI would like to offer courses much like they are offered on Lynda.com. Students would subscribe at either a monthly or yearly rate and have access to all courses for that period of time. I would like to have two paid levels of subscription: Video Basic, and Video Plus. In a Basic subscription, students would be able to watch the videos from the courses anytime. The Plus subscription would include a workbook or PDF download of course material, and the ability to download the video and/or audio from the courses. There would be both monthly and yearly options with the ability to cancel, or restart your subscription at any time. For example:

Video Basic$25/month or $250/year

Watch unlimited videos in any course

Cancel at anytime, and receive a partial refund based on number of days in the month and months in the year. If someone signs up for one month and ends their subscription on day 15, they get half of their money back.

Video Plus$40/month or $400/year

Watch unlimited videos in any course

Download PDF's, and other course materials, including videos and audio recordings.

Cancel at anytime, and receive a partial refund based on number of days in the month and months in the year. If someone signs up for one month and ends their subscription on day 15, they get half of their money back.

Alternately, for subscription cancellation we could offer pro-rated refunds for Yearly option only, and pro-ration would be based on the number of months left in the year. For the monthly subscriptions, the student would have access to courses until the end of their month and would not be billed any further, but would not receive a refund. (ie: A student subscribes for either level for one month of classes and then decides on day 15 that they want to cancel their subscription. There would be no refund, and the access to courses would end at day 30. OR A student subscribes to the Video Plus for one year, and decided in the middle of the 3rd month to cancel their subscription. They would receive a prorated refund based on the number of months they have had access. In this case their refund would be $400 minus three months at $40, which would make it a $280 refund, and their access would end at the end of the 3rd month.) I am also open to a combination of these options.

Payouts to TeachersEvery month, revenue for the month would be pooled. Overhead costs, such as website maintenance, quality control, contributor support, and customer support, and the royalties for contributors would be divided. Contributors will be paid based on number of views, similar to they way it is done at Lynda.com.

Justifications for Proposed MethodsThere is a definite draw for the subscription method in this industry. Folks who are interested in sustainable living seem to be interested in learning how to do many different skills, and it is nearly impossible to learn how to do everything at once! The number of books that have been both self-published and traditionally published has blossomed in recent years, and there is definite room for growth in the availability of this information. Books are great references, but I believe that YouTube has proven the need for real-time visual instructions.

With an online school like this, folks will be able to learn at their own pace. They can learn beginning gardening at the beginning of the summer. By the end of the growing season they may want to take classes on canning and preserving food. Then by the next spring they may be ready for the intermediate gardening class, but may have an interest in a brief review of topics learned in the beginning classes before starting, and so forth. That same person may also have an interest during that time in learning how to live plastic free, or how to clean a stain using home made soap, or even how to make their own pallet furniture. With the subscription to access all classes, the DIY-er would be able to tackle projects at their own pace with support from experts at an agreeable price.

There has been a rising interest of late to live more sustainably and I do not see an end to it. There is so much “traditional” content, new sustainable living techniques are being pioneered or reinvented all the time, and new research on old home food production and farming is being done all the time. I do not see an end to new content in the foreseeable future.

Free ContentIn my opinion, free content is going to be an important part of this online school. I'm not sure how best to go about this, and I am open to suggestions, but with the internet and information being so available for free, I feel we are going to need some free content in order to be competitive.

At first my thoughts are to do something along the lines of having a sustainable living basics course that is free to anyone and everyone, you just have to open a free account, which would require nothing more than a name and email address. This basics course would have six to ten skills that no one should live without. We would ask permission to send them a newsletter and information on our other courses in order to encourage a paid subscription.

Other options, which could be used in tandem with the free basics course, could be as follows:

Free Previews- One or two videos in each course could be viewed for free

Monthly Freebies- Contributors would be given the option to allow folks one month of free access to their course, as a way to advertise for their other courses, etc. Site-wide, there would be only 3 to 5 courses for free at any given time.

Obviously, credibility and expertise will need to be encouraged in contributors in order to encourage subscriptions as well. We will want folks to subscribe to paid content because we have authority, and proven positive results.

The PotentialI can see the incredible potential in creating a space like this where folks can come to learn, and share what they have learned. What I am looking for next, is an action plan. I need to know what it takes to build a school like this. I need to know who to ask for help, and I need to know who wants to be on my team. I need to gauge interest from contributors and students alike.

I will be sending this letter to folks that I believe can help. I will be posting it on my blogs, and I will begin by gauging interest by using an online survey. If you are interested, or if you know others who may be interested, please take the survey, and pass this information on. I really appreciate all your support.

Very appealing ideas! My wife, a retired RN, and I, a retired teacher, are building a new home on Chehalis river bottom soil, rich and deep. We are fascinated with your suggested offerings, and we are very much looking forward to participating as students in your classes at the earliest opportunity. We could take instruction online and/or onsite, so please keep us informed and updated as things progress. Cheers t&L

Reply

Lindsay and Chris

10/2/2016 10:16:39 am

Hey Tim!
Thank you for your comments. We are looking forward to teaching classes again. We are nearly done with our new home. Keep checking back, and be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you can be the first to know what's happening here at Haven Homestead. Good luck with your new home! I hope to meet you in person soon.

Sincerely,
Lindsay Hodge

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Lindsay Hodge

Lindsay Hodge is our resident Writer here at Haven Homestead. She keeps this blog, a GRIT blog, and writes other fun things too.